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Date: April 16, 2024

Elon Musk plans to charge the X platform’s new users a nominal fee to combat AI bot spamming

Twitter, which was renamed X after Elon Musk acquired the company, has introduced a new user fee. The platform is undergoing a significant shift to make it secure and minimize spam. New users will be required to pay a nominal fee to gain write access. This typically means that they will have to pay for posting, commenting, and replying, among other things. 

Elon Musk recently shared a post on his handle, X Daily News, which regularly provides updates regarding X-related developments. Musk says that the main reason behind taking this step is the surge in spam posts on X. Musk says that charging a small fee to allow users to write access will play a major role in combating the onslaught of AI bot spam. 

Unfortunately, a small fee for new user write access is the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots. Current AI (and troll farms) can pass “are you a bot” with ease. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2024

Currently, Musk claims that AI bots have been spamming on X. The statement is backed by a controversial fact that current AI and troll farms can easily pass any ‘Are you a robot’ test. If that’s true, how does the platform identify and segregate AI bots from frequent posters? 

After the initial announcement of the new user fee, musk updated later that the new users will have to pay for the first 3 months of profile creation for a fee. After the 3-month period, they will get free access to the user write actions. 

X started charging unverified users $1 per year in New Zealand and the Philippines. New users in these regions could read the posts but were denied access to posting, commenting, or replying to messages. X has not revealed when the new rules will be applied globally and which regions will be targeted gradually. 

Last month, X announced that the platform will be purging spam accounts, which may impact their follower count. X recently updated its user agreement policy, which included a clause that the platform can use public posts for training its AI models and machine learning algorithms.
 

By Arpit Dubey

Arpit is a dreamer, wanderer, and a tech nerd who loves to jot down tech musings and updates. With a logician mind, he is always chasing sunrises and tech advancements while secretly preparing for the robot uprising.